Number Five
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: The story starting at V's birth when he was but a pile of flesh and bone they called Number Five. The events that happened while at Larkhill, where he knew nothing, and they taught him everything. How to eat, how to breathe, how to love, how to hate.


He remembers and remembers it.

There was no warmth. Not ever. The concept of warmth was alien, he had not yet experienced it, and was unaware it ever existed. He will someday say that it was like being born again, but he'll stop himself and say it was his birth, for he does not remember one before it. He knows he must have come from a mother and father, there must have been warmth given to him as a child, blankets wrapped around him, a mother who sang to him, a father who taught him. There must have been these things, or at least he likes to imagine that there were these things. He thinks about it, pretends these thoughts are memories, and makes up his childhood that never really existed.

He was born with a tube down his throat. Born into a world with people with faces he did not register as faces. They spoke and he didn't realize what speaking was. Noises came from their mouths, words in a tongue he could no longer remember, and never even thought to Master. He was born with a tube down his throat, making him breath. He was born with needles sticking in his arms, and a sack of blood by his side. He was born in these moments, coming out of a coma, and he remembers them.

"He went into shock a few weeks ago. Then he dipped into the coma." Says a man.

"Yes, I know." Delia Surridge says.

"We thought he was going to die, especially when we did the cat scans to see a total annihilation of brain matter. He became more and more dependent on the machine in just a few days. But then…"

"What happened?" She asks.

"Well…the brain healed itself."

"How?"

"We don't know. But it works. It's capable of everything. It's just…"

"What is it?"

"We think there's been a major loss of memory, and possible learning capabilities. He can't even breath on his own because he doesn't know how. Complete and total rebirth, back to zero."

He does not know it yet, at that time when a machine breathed for him. He didn't know as all these people walked around him, he did not see them as people, he did not recognize them, for all of it had then been forgotten. Nothing remained. He only was able to watch as Delia Surridge came closer to him and kneel down to him.

"Welcome back, Number Five." She says in words he can't understand.

People weren't people, walls were not walls, white was not white. He was a clean slate, a pure and simple canvas ready to be painted on. He was a song not yet written, and violin not yet tuned, a play not yet spoken. Nothing was registered, nothing was the world. He did not known language, he did not know movement.

He didn't even remember how to breathe.

---------------

The next months all studies were turned to him. His dosage of the drug had been doubled when it was seen that he was only one of ten remaining survivors from the original forty. The others were abused as all flocked to him. A man who died and a body demanded that he still live. He was fascinating to them, something inside him, an anomaly that made him live again. That brought back the mind from brain dead.

It was together decided that he would be rehabilitated all the while still given the drug, to see what happens. If he would worsen as they taught him, or only grow better.

Faces began to become unknowingly familiar. He was unaware of the massive number of doctors that looked after him, for he was only able to recognize about four faces who constantly checked on him. He remembers when they first took out the tube, and forced his body to supply its own air. He did not know how to sit up, so a few people were hold him up, and pushing his head up so he was looking at the ceiling. The instincts of the human mind rose in him, an unknowingly he felt fear. A moan resonated from his throat, a simple cry of help, of desperation that he was unable to understand.

Someone stood on a chair above him, and quickly pulled the tube out. The body twisted, the muscles contracted, the throat gagged, and the lungs were weak. They held him up as his head fell and he coughed and coughed and coughed. Blood poured from his mouth and they pushed his face into a bucket. And when the coughing was done, and they were getting towels to wipe him of the blood, he panted. Deep breathes, over and over and over again.

In went the air to the lungs, and to the blood that was pumped by the heart who was infected with the virus.

It was then by mere instinct were his vocal cords discovered. He found that he was able to make noise from the mouth as the others were. Unable and unknowing to move, he just moaned, senseless, primitive cries.

They sedated him, and he slept for five hours, sometimes choking in his sleep.

The next few days, that he never understood, went by smoothly. They did not harm him much then. Dr. Surridge came to visit most of all, speaking words he didn't understand, touching him without reason. Doctors came and went, poking him, pricking him, and slowly he began feeling the cold of the room, the softness of the blanket, and the poking of the needles. Dr. Surridge he began to remember in most detail. Her face, and the sound of her noises that was her voice. She spoke all the time when she came and slowly noises became words.

He was unaware of his own mobility then, his head hung from its own weight on the wall, and his limbs were limp. Dr. Surridge once raised his arm, then let it go, and it fell back down. He watched as she repeated this act several times, and in then started making noises from her mouth.

"Hold it up." She said to him. "Hold your arm up."

She gripped his arm tighter, and then held up her own for example. He observed, as he had become accustomed to. She slowly let go of his arm, and he held it up. Muscles were consciously altered and strengthen to raise it, and he stared upon his arm, simply standing there on its own. He recognized it as his own, and saw that it stood because of him.

Movement was discovered. Then touch.

One sense he soon mastered, touch. He hadn't practiced moving his legs yet, but he was skilled in moving his arms. He touched many things, making those primitive noises that translated into curiosity and innocence. He touched the soft blanket, and the cold metal bed. He touched the smooth wall, and the strangeness of his IV bag. The doctors came and he grabbed at them, touching their flesh, their clothes. His attention then turned to his own flesh, which was quite stimulating for then he felt two things at once. He touched his face, his hand felt his face, and his face felt his hand.

The tongue was discovered in this manner, of touching his face. He went from his ears to his head, to his eyes and nose, and finally he found a hole in his face that was his mouth. He reached into the hole to find his tongue, it was unlike anything he had at that point felt. It was. Warm and slimy, went and slippery. Dr. Surridge came at the moment of discovery, she found him with half his hand in his mouth. He made a noise, explaining what he had done. She laughed and pulled his hand out, wiping it with the blanket.

He made a noise. And she spoke back.

It was around this time they stopped directly feeding him through a tube that entered his stomach. While they made him sleep they pulled this tube out, and when he woke Dr. Surridge taught him how to eat. Food was put in his mouth, and he didn't know how to swallow. His mouth would open and the food would pour out. Once he was able to chew and swallow, he didn't seem to like it very much.

They soon turned to rehabilitation of his leg muscles. They showed him his legs, explaining somehow that they were like his arms. Through electric shock they put feeling back into them. His legs would go into spasms at times because of this, and finally full feeling was returned to them.

They began rehabilitating him as one raises child. They started simply with the act of walking. His legs were severely hurt and he took his first new steps on crutches. The crutches were removed and he was forced to walk without them, going through many falls, many bruises, and many sprains. But once he discovered his legs could move, he found that all his body could move as well. He played as an infant does, with his hands, finding them most interesting because he could watch them most. They were so small, and yet they could move so much. Once the act of walking was somewhat mastered, it was decided the next step was speech.

They made noises they called words, he simply made noises, and found that they wanted him to mimic them. This was done mostly by Dr. Surridge, because it was found he favored her somewhat. She would say a word, and he would make a sound that was similar.

Then she stopped coming.

--------------

"What's this?" Says one of the many doctors with many different faces.

He swings his legs, and shakes his head. The doctor holds up a card with a picture of a dog on it. His hand comes and touches his face, and rolls over his cheeks. He stares away from the card, and tries to recall the sound the word makes.

"Number five?" The doctor presses.

"Dog." Number five says, without really moving his tongue, so the word is mumbled.

"Good. And what does a dog say?"

"…Bark."

The game is simple, and the cards never stop. The doctor raises a new one.

"And this?" He says.

"…House."

"And this?"

"…Flo-er, Flow-er, Floo-w-er." Flower was indeed a difficult sound to make, for it required two different noises to make the one word.

"Flower, yes."

"Flow-er."

"Yes."

The game gets old quickly to him. Dr. Surridge has ceased coming to him, and now these noises they call words are no longer interesting. He's in a white room, that he now knows is white. Three people stand around him, not including the doctor with the cards sitting across from him.

"This one?" Asks the doctor.

It was a picture of a woman holding a baby.

"Moth-er." He says, shaking his head.

"Yes. And what does a mother hold?"

"Baby."

"And who takes care of the mother and baby?"

"Fath-er."

"Very good."

His achievements are praised by simple hums, and approvals. Then the doctors will turn away from him, and put aside the cards to turn to another. Then they speak words he has not yet learned, they speak a foreign language in those times.

Another doctor enters the room, and whispers and speaks in long words with many sounds to the other. The doctors look back at him and set down the cards. He motions to the others and leave.

"Now please," says the doctor, "recite the alphabet while I'm gone. I'll be right back."

A large window allows other eyes to watch him, and he looks back at them, those eyes.

"A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P…" He hates those letters "M, n, o, p," or he hates the order they come in. M, and N get mixed up, and they swirl together, and he hates it. "Q." Q, an O with a tail. "R. S. T. U." R, a P with an extra leg. "V..." He stops there. He doesn't like the remaining letters, especially "W," a mere letter taking many sounds to make it, it wasn't worth it.

Letters became pictures, pictures that had sounds. Words became art with sounds, and soon he began to read again. Dr. Surridge was the one who gave him the books, starting off simply, with rhymes, and rather quickly moving onto Shakespeare. All the way until he could recite these plays for his doctors, because somehow he knew it amazed them, and that made him feel good.

He stayed there for some time, reading the days away in the hospital. Doctors with familiar faces came and spoke with him. He mastered the art of conversation, and often asked about the books he read. Dr. Surridge came most of all, always fascinated, always charming. Doctors asked him questions, and brought in new games, and he loved them. They made him take fun little tests that determined his IQ, little geometry riddles as well as memory games. He'd walk around with an IV in his arm and he'd do everything for his doctors, all for the reward of their praise and their clapping.

This was the time of innocence, and it would soon end. It ended much like all other innocence, with realization, and questioning.

He bubbles in the answers, as Dr. Surridge enters.

"Finished already?" She smiles.

"Yes." He says, handing her the test. "This one was quite challenging."

"That's good."

She sits next to him by his desk, taking out his arm, and flicking a needle.

"I have a question." He says.

"Okay."

"How did I get here?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well…the books, Delia, they describe places beyond this place. Forests, and Oceans, Empires, and Kingdoms…I was just wondering how it is that I find myself here, and not those places."

Dr. Surridge drops her needle, and her mouth drops open. He stares at her, with innocence in his eyes, an innocent man asking an innocent question, wanting an innocent answer. She doesn't say anything for a while, and her hands begin to shake. She said nothing as she placed all her things down, and walked out of the room.

Then she came back mere minutes later, after talking to others and formulating a perfect lie.

"You came here, Number Five." She says. "You see…these are very troubling times. Epidemics, sicknesses are sweeping the world. You got sick and you came here, as many people have."

"Sick?"

"Yes. The sickness had taken root and it had already done damage to your brain, that's why you can't remember much."

"Am I still sick?"

"Yes."

"Will I be allowed to leave once I am well?"

"Of course."

"Would you come with me?"

"Why?"

"Well…you know, I assume there is still a lot about the world I have forgotten, I fear going out into alone."

"Yes…I'll go with you."

She lied. He knew she was lying. But he wanted to believe her, he wanted to so much. He wanted to believe that the needles were full of medicine. He wanted to believe the world he knew so little of was in chaos. He wanted to, and he tried, and tried.

His exposed curiosity and self-awareness scared the other doctors. Especially a Mr. Prothero. The blame went to Delia, who had given him the books in the first place. They had a perfect subject, a clean slate, a perfect canvas that was their own to do what they wished, and he would have put up no objection. He didn't know, he knew nothing, and they could had done anything they wanted to him, and he wouldn't have known. But now, such an ideal was ruined, he was aware there was a world beyond what he had been shown. He was aware there were more people out there besides himself and doctors. He was self aware. Delia had then just ruined the masterpiece. He knew now, and it was only a matter of time before he figured out that he was a prisoner.

He could never be what they wanted now.

He was a threat, a threat they decided to quickly overtake.

The good times were over.

He remembers the moment it happened, when all good things he had believed of the world were ended. He remembers it so clearly, all the while he as still attempting to make himself believe Delia's words were true. He was reading at the time, reading the anatomy of the human body, as they had nothing else for him to read that day. Delia hadn't had time to go to the store and get anything new, and this was all they had. He was reading the chapter about bone structure, and the importance of the rib cage and skull, when it happened.

They came for him. It wasn't like usual, five of them came in, and they didn't say anything. They ran at him, and put a black bag over his face. They pushed him down on the ground, pinning him, and ripped his IV out, causing him to bleed. He kicked as instincts told him, until he felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and then everything else went numb.

They were dragging him, he could feel that, they were dragging him away.

This was the moment of ultimate betrayal, the seeds of what would become his Vendetta. When he was tossed away, the final truth to the lies. He had reached intellect, what he thought was a gift from his healers, but now seen as an unwanted byproduct. They dragged him away, he kicked and kicked, and struggled.

The bag was taken off, and he found himself in Room Number V.

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He spent a good while contemplating why they had done what they had done. He wondered to himself, not allowing himself to come to the conclusion that it's all been a lie. But he sat there, a room with four white walls, a single door, and a crack in one of those walls. No one came, no one smiled, there were no faces, there were no more books. They left him. He once thought to himself that perhaps he had done wrong, that he had done something terrible to deserve this. Maybe he was still sick, maybe he had gotten Delia sick! No…he knew these were not true, they had left him.

Or they were never really there.

He finally saw it, as if laid out before him. He was not sick, this was not a hospital. This was a prison that feared an aware prisoner. They did something to him. They did something to him that made him forget. They were not healers. They were destroyers acting with unnatural power.

Number Five sat there in his white room, curled up in a ball, staring at the door, as if waiting for someone to come in and tell him this wall all a big misunderstanding. But nothing came, no apology, no welcoming doctors. Nothing, not ever.

He looked upon his wrist after a few hours of unmoving waiting. To see that where his IV once was, was now a gaping hole that entered his vain. He was bleeding, and had made a small little puddle on the floor. He frowned at it, the blood, never before seeing it, only read about it. It was actually quite a nice color, a deep crimson red.

All he knew had betrayed him.

All he knew from then on was hate. All he could taste was the blood.

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None of them had faces, he didn't bother to remember them. They were all the same then on, mindless doctors knowing only what they're told, doing only as they are commanded. He just sat there curled up in the center of his room, and they would come in, faceless, heartless, poking him, taking away his blood.

He found that they were in constant routine. He would count the minutes by counting the seconds until the doctors returned, and they roughly came about every six hours each day, to do the exact same thing. He imagined that there was other business they attended to in those six hour gaps. Other quotas, other jobs.

It was the 77th six hour when he realized he was very tired. He raised his head up once, and felt that his head was very, very heavy. He recalled this feeling from when he was first reborn, the overwhelming sense of tiredness, the call of sleep. He wondered what had happened when in moments he had felt just fine. He was so very, very tired. He looked at his arm in those moments, to the holes the doctors had made to put in their needles. Something…

Happening…What's…happening to me?

They're doing something.

The hours became days and days became weeks, the tiredness continued throughout. He'd began to walk, finding that merely lying still made him more tired. He'd walk the perimeter of his room, leaning on its walls. He'd walk, and walk, and walk, and walk.

Until finally he fell.

"How are the others doing?" She asks.

"Far worst. It's strange though, for the past six months he hasn't reacted from the treatment, ever since he went into the coma. And now suddenly it's all caught up with him." Another doctor says.

"But he's still doing better than one through four?"

"Yes, miss."

"Delia…" He whispers.

He can smell the familiarity of the hospital, and hear the constant beating of his own heart shown on the machines. He lies on his chest, with people pushing on his back. His face to the side, he opens his eyes and he looks at Delia. Delia in all her beauty, Delia, in all her betrayal.

"His blood, his immune system mutated to attack the treatments." She says.

"Well now the treatments mutated to attack his immune system."

"I suppose that was to be expected."

He can remember his life, every moment of it since he was reborn in that hospital. He can remember all six months of it, and never before has he been so tired. His entire body was numb, and blood was seeping from his mouth. Skin rashes had appeared all over his back, and people were taking so much blood.

"Delia…" He moves his fingers.

She comes to him, kneeling down to him.

"Yes, Number Five?"

"I need that blood…"

"We need it too."

They fed him, and he threw up everything they stuffed down his throat. The treatments attacked his lungs, and he began coughing up blood. The treatments began attacking his muscles, and he'd go into seizures. He starved in those weeks. His ribs could be seen as he laid down, and even the beating of his heart could be seen on his rising and dipping skin. He turned over once and broke a rib. He swung his arm and it got dislocated. He seemed to shrink in those times. As he'd curl up into a ball, and suffer.

This was much different than any of the others however. Most of the other experiments had just abruptly died, quite quickly actually. Number Five was fighting the treatments, and so it was attacking other systems of his body. The coming weeks he grew well, and his consciousness was returning. He began to observe more closely everything around him. The people, the treatments. It was where he came up with a plan.

The doctors come, they have no faces, they come with their medicine, and their needles. They come to him as he lays still, playing the game of the weak little science experiment. The pain of the past months suddenly comes to him, causing adrenaline to pump. There's only two, and one holds down his arm, while the other gets the needle. Just a little bit closer…

He kicked one of them, grabbed the needle and stabbed it into the back of the other. It was something new, something never done before, something he had never seen happen before. But it flowed out so smoothly. They had no faces, they showed no pain as they fell to the floor and screamed. He didn't really pay much attention to them, he just ran from then on. He ran out into the hallways, where by then alarms were sounding.

He randomly chose a path to go, not caring where it went, all he had to do was escape sight, and eventually there'd be a way out. There had to be. But each hallway appeared the same as the last, each corner the same, each door the same. He counted the seconds, and into the minutes, the echoing sound of running guards could be heard. He considered that perhaps he was in a maze, another experiment, another sick and cruel joke.

He was about to give up, to submit to actually exploring what he could before they found him, when he saw an exit, a gateway with sunlight peeking through. He saw the world in the distance, a small and beautiful world. He ran to it, ran to where words were sure to take shape, letters would become images. He ran, and Delia came and stood between him and the world.

"Five, stop!" She yelled.

And five tripped over himself as he fell in front of her. He stared up at her, and she stared down at him.

-------------------

"You killed him." She says.

And he says nothing.

"Did you hear me? You killed him!"

"Yes." Number Five says.

"I knew him, Five. I knew him! He was my friend! And now you've killed him!"

"Well that tells me something about the medicines you've been giving me."

"Don't you care?"

"Don't you care about me? This isn't right, is it Delia? People shouldn't do this to people."

"And where do you go off thinking you're a person?"

"Because I have hands like you, a voice like you, eyes like you, and a face like you! I can scream like you! I can cry like you! I can learn and speak like you!"

She stared at him, and he stared back. He had chosen before the day began that this would be the last time he would speak to her. There was a sense of superiority in that decision, he had the power to do this, this was something he had control over. She shook her head, and walked out the door, and that was the last time he spoke to her.

Then people with no faces come in and they started beating him.

The daily beatings didn't stop, for a few weeks. He assumed they were doing this to show him that they were in control. It was punishment. They took turns, and he began to remember who threw the softer punches, who showed more mercy in their kicks. He began to remember when the men who actually enjoyed themselves came in. He remembered when the people with the electricity came in, shocking him into spasms. He discovered being sick was better than the beatings. Beatings caused broken bones, but the bones would heal only to be broken again. They left scars and bruises.

And sometimes there was a new drug. A drug that made him go numb, and they put so much in him. So many hard pokes that left scars, so much laughter as they did so. They gave him so much until he could hardly breathe on his own. So much that he could not speak, or see properly. So much he could no longer feel or care. So much he felt like he was in a coma. It was then that sometimes they would rape him.

And all throughout these beatings, they still injected him with the so called medicine.

He hated them all.

---------------

After that they left him fairly alone. Of course maintaining his medicine, but they never spoke to him after that. There was the occasional insult, and kick to the ribs, but that's it, and that really wasn't hard. There was only the silence of his four white walls, and the occasional vomit on his part.

But it was in the silence that he began to truly hear them. At first he didn't realize it, but then he knew, it was screaming. Screams that have been lowered to nothing but primal noises, no longer words, stripped of such beauty. He could hear them, hear them clear as day. It was as if they were calling to him. Asking him, because no one else would listen. They called to him, four voices in unison, four voices in a choir, an angelic choir conducted by the devil. There was so much pain…

He tried to distinguish the screams between the four, but he couldn't, they had been perfect bound and formed into one. They never stopped. They always screamed, even when they were screaming. They became his lullaby, the music he listened to when he went to sleep. He could hear it, the familiar sense of hate put into music, put into a noise that he could not make himself. That was it, that was what he felt.

The doctors sometimes took them out of the rooms, they took all five of them to the hospital area, put them in clear cages, where he could see the beautiful choir that called out to him. They looked like him, in the same pain, the same light. Their eyes were full of sorrow, pain, and he could tell just by looking at them that they remembered their lives before this place. They knew about the outside world, and took comfort in heir memories. He had no such things, and when they locked them up in the small little glass cages, he wondered as he stare at them, he wondered what they had seen. They screamed in their cages, scratching at the glass walls, banging their heads to the floor, sleeping the pain away, tearing at their own flesh until they started bleeding.

Yet even in their pain, their primal attempts to relieve it, Number Five fell in love with them. They were beautiful. Beautiful and strong, believing in the past when their world was perfect. He stared at them through the glass, the only times he would ever see them, and he thanked them for the music they provided. They were beautiful, and he hoped the pain would end for them soon, they deserved it, they deserved peace.

Valerie deserved peace.

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Slowly in the coming months their music ended. One by one they left him alone, their suffering over, their souls finally free. The choir died, and there was no more lullaby. Number Five rather missed the music, but was happy for the players that it was over. But now there was only silence, he had entered what was left. He was the last one alive. The last experiment of who knows how many. He heard the doctors talking about him in the silence. There was something in his blood, they would say. Something inside the blood that made him keep going.

It was in the silence, that Number Five began to turn to himself. There was nothing else in those days but him, and he would look at himself, look at his skin with it's transparent nature. He'd feel his face, wondering what the color of his eyes were. He'd lay in the corners and wonder, wonder, who he was.

This was where the schizophrenia settled in, and the white walls began to close in on him, suffocating him. This was where he'd shake on the floor, unable to stop. Madness took hold, mental pain over the physical. Then he dreamed.

"What did you dream, Number Five?" The doctors ask.

"I saw…" He doesn't look up at them. "A man with no face. Just a white blank face where eyes and a mouth should have been. He came at me, and started choking me. So I…scratched at his head, finally slicing open a cut. The cut grew and became his mouth, and he wouldn't stop grinning at me. The face grinned, and told me what I must do."

"And what is that?"

"I must give him a voice."

Number Five from then on had a purpose.

Filled with hatred and despair, he had a purpose. From nothing he became something. From flesh and bones he grew into a man with a mind. They had killed the previous man who owned this flesh, and now they had given birth to him. May the previous man rest in peace. His fingertips shook in his hate, his anger. Everyone who had no face he just wanted to punch and beat to death. He knew exactly where to hit, exactly where it hurt most. He had learned all of it from experience, not a book.

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In a sense it was Delia who had given birth to him, took care of him, gave him the books, taught him how to read. But this was not enough for redemption. No, it would never be enough. Number Five knew it would never be enough. And so a few months went by as he mentally prepared himself for what he was planning to do. He dreamt of the world outside these horrible walls. The world that was in the books he read, the world where there is no such suffering as his. Where he could be free.

Where it would rain, and he could feel God.

He'd imagine the blissful world outside. Where there were trees and sunlight. Where there were children, and smiles. Where there was a sky, and stars, and buildings, and all such lovely things. He'd run, that's what he'd do. He'd run and run and run until he was gone from this horrible place. He'd run and run and run, run forever, run from the pain. He'd run and make a life for himself. A beautiful life.

He just had to kill them all first.

He found it a bit silly, that he was planning such destruction when before he was never aware of it. He questioned for a moment if he was capable of such acts, but he thought that all men were capable of these things. And so it was decided. He would blow the whole white walls up, turn them into oblivion, until there was no remnant but their memory.

It was when they put him in the small glass cage that he was going to do it. Naked like always, gripping Valerie's note, he knew exactly what he was going to do. Slowly a doctor came to him, opening the lock and lightly opening the door. He went out slowly, as if defeated.

Then he killed them, how he doesn't like to discuss. Let us just say there were fists.

Number Five grabbed some scalpels, and ran. An alarm sounded and there were people running everywhere. A man ran up to him, and Number Five stabbed him in the chest with one of the scalpels.

"Five!" Delia yelled.

Number Five dropped the body.

"What do you want?" He asked her.

"I want to help you…please, let me help you."

Number Five didn't even look at her, but the blood on his hands.

"Delia, you're the worst thing that ever happened to me, probably to everyone."

"We need you! We need your blood!"

"Why? What's in my blood?"

"Five…"

"Death? Is death in my blood? Is it my blood that killed the others? That killed Valerie?"

"Who?"

"VALERIE!" The women who loved him with all her heart.

"Stop this! Stop the killing!"

"The killing has only just begun, darling."

Number Five turned to her and held up a scalpel towards her, dripping in blood.

"My name is not 'Five.'" He told her. "Now. Go."

She turned and she ran in all confusion, and he slowly walked with graceful stride, aware that he was better than every man or women there. That even as he slaughtered who ever stood in his way, he was better than them. He had less blood on his hands, less souls that haunted him. He just kept going, and going, and going, until there was fire.

An explosion, an explosion that ruined all her work. An explosion that began to burn away his flesh, but he did not care. Flesh was but a shell, like muscle, like bone, just a shell for his mind and soul. No fire could touch them. He walked easily through the flames as they held onto him, biting him, wanting him to stop and feed them his self. Fire in all hot intensity was not as hot as his rage. He just kept walking, kept going, and he soon realized that it was night, not even noticing the pain. People ran away, doctors in their damn white coats on fire ran. They were screaming, screaming in all the agony he had caused.

He walked onward, and saw Delia, and screamed.

Then he was gone. Like a shadow, like a memory. Just gone.

Still the killing had only begun.

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He ran and ran, ran away from that terrible place. Now his flesh began to burn and the destroyed nerves screamed in agony as they were destroyed. He still ran as the cold began to soothe the fire, and it began to rain, and God bathed him. He ran and ran until he felt he could run no further.

Until he reached a city with burning lights like fire, and there were people smiling with these masks.

"Bring out the Guy!" They yelled. "Bring out Guy Fawkes!"

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November!" They continued.

The fifth of November, Guy Fawkes Day, his birthday where he watched as police came to these people and shot them one by one, saying Guy Fawkes Day was not a celebration, there was nothing to celebrate by blowing up Parliament.

Even here he witnessed pain that he could not escape.

A boy that couldn't have been older than sixteen was running from the police as they shot him down, and the mask he wore slipped in the rain soaked road towards him. He grabbed this mask, and he ran away once again. He ran and ran, and ran down into the Earth where eyes could not see.

He began peeling away the burnt flesh.

He began to listen to the world and learn about its horrors.

He watched as thousands died because of his blood.

He watched and he planned.

He began the gunpowder treason and plot.

He was V.


End file.
